ABC on Tuesday greenlighted an
eight-hour miniseries about the gay rights movement titled When We
Rise.

The project reunites the team behind
the 2008 film Milk: Director Gus Van Sant, writer Dustin Lance
Black and producer Bruce Cohen. Milk's subject was Harvey
Milk, an LGBT rights activist and politician who was gunned down
inside San Francisco City Hall.

According to Deadline Hollywood, the
project has been in development at ABC for more than two years.

Van Sant, who will direct the first
two-hour episode, will co-produce the series with Black, Cohen and
Laurence Mark.

“When We Rise chronicles the
personal and political struggles, setbacks and triumphs of a diverse
family of LGBT men and women who helped pioneer one of the last legs
of the U.S. civil rights movement from its turbulent infancy in the
20th century to its successes today,” Deadline
wrote of the upcoming miniseries.